


Mixed Up, Muddled Up, Shook Up World [Except for Lola]

by BeneficialAddiction



Series: Boxers, Briefs, and Other Shorts [27]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel, Marvel (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: M/M, Memory Loss, More of a Do-Over, SHIELD Husbands, Secret Relationship, not really a fix-it, post-death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-12
Updated: 2018-09-28
Packaged: 2019-06-26 02:32:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15653940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeneficialAddiction/pseuds/BeneficialAddiction
Summary: For the lovely Lola381pce - Phil doesn't quite understand why Agent Clint Barton is so pissed to see him alive and well, but as always, Lola helps everything make sense..





	1. Except for Lola

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lola381pce](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lola381pce/gifts).



Phil expects a few things to happen after he sits down in front of a camera and exposes SHIELD to the world. Most of those things do, and together with his new team, he handles them, still in the habit of keeping backup plans for his backup plans. It’s not smooth, and it’s not easy, but they weather the fall out and start the real clean-up without too much personal damage. 

He speaks to Fury, who true to form isn’t really dead. 

He speaks to Hill, who has taken to her role within this new SHIELD like a duck to water. 

He speaks to Tony Stark, who is actually the last person he expects to hear from, and is surprised to receive a very warm and very honest invitation to move in to the Tower with all his ducklings in tow, though only after he receives a resounding scolding about lying and being inconsiderate of other people’s feelings. 

Ironic, but heartfelt, so he doesn’t point out the hypocrisy. 

Yes, he speaks to just about everyone except the one person, or rather two people, that he expects to come crashing back into his life as soon as the lie that was his death is proven false; his assets, his fellow agents, his friends - Clint Barton and Natasha Romanov. 

That was really the only thing out of the lot of them that he had really been counting on, the one thing that he had really hoped for. 

But then it just... doesn’t happen. 

And it keeps on not happening. 

Days pass, three whole weeks, until Phil finally has to face facts and accept that his lie was just one step too far. 

It’s hard, and it hurts, but he puts it aside. 

Barton and Romanov are adults, mostly responsible and capable of making their own decisions. When they’d worked under him they had been consummate professionals, and there is no reason to believe that that has changed. If his job, his mission had been too much for them, if the means that had been put in place to facilitate the end had conflicted with whatever moral code they had, there was nothing he could do about it now. 

So he moves on. 

He focuses on his new team, his new assets, and he stops waiting for Hawkeye and the Black Widow to drop in for a cup of coffee and a _'glad-you-aren't-dead-Boss.’_

It’s fine. 

It’s stupid to think it’s anything but fine, that there’s anything strange about that. 

The hollow, aching feeling in his chest is just phantom pain, leftover from the vicious, deadly wound he’d spent months recovering from in _'Tahiti.’_

He moves on. 

Of course, as soon as he does, what should happen but exactly what he’d been waiting for all along? 

They’re coming back from completing a mission in Istanbul, all of them together as the sun starts to set; Mack, May, Skye, and Fitzsimmons, stumbling along, hungry, filthy and exhausted. They’ve parked the Bus at a local military airfield, all locked down safe, but as the ramp lowers and they climb up into the cargo bay, they all stop dead in their tracks. 

Someone’s waiting for them. 

Agent Clint “Hawkeye” Barton is flopped on his ass, leaning back against Lola’s front passenger tire with one leg straight out in front of him, the other bent to prop up his elbow. A bottle dangles loosely from his fingers, nearly three-quarters empty, and it’s easy to see even at a distance that he’s about two gulps short of full-on drunk. 

Skye, Jemma, and Fitz have all gone silent and wary, Mack’s got a hand on his sidearm, and Mel keeps glancing back and forth between them with a look that could almost pass for nervousness on her face. Phil just frowns, confused by the sharp pang in his chest and the sight of his old asset drinking in his plane, and strides over to Barton to snatch the bottle away from him. 

“You could have waited,” he says, gaze all over the archer as he catalogues sunken, bloodshot eyes and messy hair, the gauntness of his cheeks and the long, shallow cut on his forearm. “You didn’t have to break in.” 

“Guess some things never change,” Barton hiccoughs, and Phil is alarmed by the tone of his voice. “Always were a spoilsport. ‘S not like I smashed out a window; not a total heathen.” 

“Not a drinker either, last time I checked,” he points out. 

“Yeah well you haven’t checked in a long fuckin’ time, have you!” Barton snaps, and Phil blinks, stunned by his sudden outburst. 

It’s all the time Barton needs to be on his feet, still graceful even when he’s three sheets to the wind, and he plants both hands on Phil’s torso hard, shoving him back. It hurts, even though he’s deliberately avoided Phil’s chest, hitting him low on the sides of his ribcage, and a sudden sense of unease swamps him, hot and dizzying like a panic attack. 

_What..._

“Fuck you,” Barton hisses, teeth bared, and out the corner of his eye Phil sees Mack take a step forward. “Fuck you Phil!” 

Phil? 

Barton doesn’t call him... 

_What is going on?_

“Sitrep Agent Barton,” he demands, calm and smooth the way that has always settled his specialist. “Talk to me.” 

“Talk to you?” Barton squeaks, his voice mangled as he takes a menacing step forward. “Now you wanna _talk?!_ Who the hell do you...” 

“Barton,” May says suddenly, sharp and commanding, and Barton must be drunker than Phil thought because he falls into a natural parade rest almost immediately, instinct kicking in over the emotion gleaming in his eyes. “Clint.” 

Barton blinks, drops his head and stares at his boots with his mouth open, like he’s horrified, like he’s just woken up and doesn’t know where he is. May takes a slow step closer, reaches out and puts her hand on his elbow, and a shiver rolls over him from head to toe. 

“Come with me,” May says, and Phil is abruptly reminded that these two were friends, that they had trained together extensively in the old days. “Let me get you some Buzzkill and I’ll let you fly my Bus.” 

Barton makes some kind of motion with his head and shoulders, not a nod, not a shrug, and doesn’t follow her so much as get drug along. They disappear in the direction of the cockpit and suddenly it feels like Phil’s strings have been cut, all the air whooshing out of his lungs like he’s full of leaky holes. 

“What was that all about?” Mack asks in a deep, quiet tone, stepping up to his side with his hand still wrapped around the butt of his pistol, and Phil feels the strange urge to punch him for it. 

“That was Hawkeye?” he hears Skye ask, and he swallows hard. “He um... he didn’t look too good.” 

“I wonder if he’s sick,” Jemma murmurs, “From more than the alcohol I mean. Perhaps we should...” 

“Leave him,” Phil hears himself say. “May’s got it under control. She’ll get him to down some Buzzkill and he’ll be sober by the time we’re at altitude.” 

Turning, he looks over his team, now unsettled on top of their minor aches and complaints, and somehow feels responsible. 

“Get your gear stored and then get cleaned up,” he instructs them, abruptly wishing that he wasn’t always the one in charge of taking care of other people. “Then come down to the galley. I’ll cook.” 

There’s a general murmur of consent and they slowly disburse, just in time for the ramp to start closing. As Phil makes his way back to his quarters he listens to the sounds of the plane booting up, and isn’t nearly as satisfied with it as he usually is. By the time he’s showered and changed into clean clothes – a pair of jeans and a soft, grey Henley because they’re on stand-down for the next three days – he feels jumpy and agitated and can’t help but think that he’s missing something vitally important. 

As he steps into the kitchen area, intent on making a massive pot of spicy spaghetti for his nearly-assembled team, Skye late as always, there’s a quiet click and the overhead comm system comes on, the quiet hum of the cockpit broadcasted for the rest of the plane to hear. 

“Nat kept sayin’ _come on, Barton, time to move on,”_ a slurred voice says, low and hoarse over the crisp digital of the sound system. “Have to keep movin’ agent.” 

Phil feels the hair on the back of his neck stand up, and he stares up at the speakers mounted above the cabinets. The rest of his team have gone still and silent, looks of confusion nearly identical on each face. 

“And I‘d say, Nat, I _can’t,”_ Barton continues, his tone striking a chord so deep in Phil’s chest he feels like he’s said the words himself. “‘M not ready to lose him.” 

In the background, the sounds of switches flipped, of buttons pressed, and no way in hell May doesn’t know she’s turned on the PA, so what is she _doing?_

“And you know what she said to me?” Barton huffs, “She said, you already did. So get up. Eat this. Hit the mats, take a shower, get some sleep, but none of it _matters!_ An’ every time she had to leave the room she’d say _promise me._ Promise me you’ll still be here when I come back.” 

_“Barton,”_ May says, firm and cold with poorly-hidden concern, but Phil can barely hear her over the sudden pounding of his heart, the throbbing in his head. 

"She didn‘t want me to come,” he hears Clint say - and _Clint,_ when had it become _Clint?_ "She told me not to come looking for him. Told her I just had to see him, that I had to know for sure it was true, that he actually...” 

“Clint...” 

“She kept telling me to move on,” he says, his voice stronger and clearer now as the pills kick in and counteract the alcohol that had been making him so unsteady. “And I said, I can’t. Dunno how.” 

A pause, a long pause, and Phil can’t breathe his throat is so tight, his chest seizing up like he’s underwater. 

“Guess she was right,” Clint mumbles. “Here. Give these back to him for me, will ya’? ‘M just gonna... walk from here.” 

The sound of the door cockpit door unsealing hit the comms and Phil is moving before Mel even has a chance to bark at him, before she even has the chance to flash the lights that set the Bus to autopilot. 

“Barton, don’t you dare jump out of my plane!” 

Phil finds himself running back to the cargo bay. He knows his agent, knows exactly how skilled and how reckless he is, and knows full-well that he really would strap into a parachute and jump from thirty thousand feet. He’s just hit the stairs with a clang when Skye’s voice rings out across the garage bay, protective and indignant. 

“Hey! Don’t touch Lola!” 

Clint’s eye-roll is caustic, scathing enough to sting, and yet Phil hardly notices. It’s not directed at him anyway, he’s glaring at Skye who’s emerged over by the boxing bags, but Phil doesn’t believe for a minute that he isn’t aware of him up on the catwalk, staring down at the scene below. 

He’s sitting in Lola. 

Phil waits for the customary flare of jealousy, the nearly homicidal burst of fury that he experiences whenever anyone touches his beloved car, but it never comes. It’s stupid – he hasn’t even been able to start Lola in months, not after having his arm cut off, no longer in possession of the flesh-and-blood hand that activates her engines – but he still expects... something else. 

Something different than the warm feeling of contentment and rightness and bone-deep fondness that seeps out from his heart all the way to his fingertips at the sight of Clint Barton sitting in Lola’s driver’s seat. 

Sighing hard enough to make his shoulders heave, an expression of soft heartbreak on his face, Clint lifts a hand and caresses her steering wheel like a lover, and to Phil’s heart-stopping shock, she starts up with a buttery purr that does justice to the simile. 

“You...” 

Clint looks up at him, a slow, intense look that drives right to Phil’s very core, and slowly he comes down the stairs to stand near Lola’s headlights. 

“You can start Lola,” he says quietly, all awe and gentle confusion, and Clint’s brown crinkles like he doesn’t understand. 

“Yeah,” he says slowly, tilting his head and looking at Phil even closer, eyes sharp and clear though still bruised and wary around the edges, tired and cautious. “You... you added me to her biolocks, the night you... the night you proposed.” 

Phil stares, stunned. 

Proposed? 

Suddenly Mel appears at his side and holds something out to him, two gold rings on a long, thin chain. They’re warm and smooth between his fingers, familiar, and something tickles at the back of his mind, sharp pinpricks like needles in his brain. 

“I’m sorry Phil,” she says as Clint stares at him, horror slowly starting to overtake the hurt on his face. “I didn’t know. Clint...” 

She turns away from him, steps up to Clint’s side and opens Lola’s door, pulls him out. 

“I’m sorry,” she says, and Phil kinda stops listening because he knows already, he knows all the shit Fury put him through to bring him back to life and how he took away his memories so he would survive the process. He’d thought he’d gotten everything back when he gone back into the cradle, but if May hadn’t known about him and Clint, then Fury wouldn’t have known, and then... 

It doesn’t make sense and his head screams at him as he tries to puzzle through it, and he’s pinching the wedding bands between his fingers so tight they hurt, but suddenly Clint’s standing in front of him and crowding close, close enough that the archer is all he can see and feel and smell, all warm strength and rich coffee and bright, grey-green eyes, gone searching and hopeful. 

“I can’t remember,” Phil whispers, throat aching, the words tearing themselves out of his chest. “Clint...” 

“Hey, hey,” he murmurs, soft and careful as he reaches out slowly and puts his hands hesitantly on Phil’s elbows, brushing back and forth across bare skin where he’s got his sleeves pushed up. “It’s ok. I’m sorry, I should’ve... I should’ve known you wouldn’t... I’m so sorry Phil!” 

“It’s my fault,” he argues, suddenly sure of that even though he’s still confused by everything that’s happened, even though a sense of safety and contentment has settled deep into his bones being this close. “I... I can’t _remember...”_

May clears her throat, and Phil blinks, looks around, only to find them surrounded by his entire team, all watching with an array of pity and concern and amusement on their faces. He catches Skye’s eye and she makes a little gesture with her chin toward Clint, forehead crinkled like she’s trying to communicate with him with her eyebrows. He abruptly wonders what she would do in this situation, if he can challenge her bold bravery and... fix this somehow, but he... 

“Come with me?” he hears himself say, and he’s painfully relieved when it comes out like a question instead of a command. 

Clint lifts his head, looks surprised, but nods and moves after him. 

Phil nods at May sharply, leaving her in charge, and starts back up the stairs, slow so that Clint can follow. It’s not necessary – the archer is tight on his heels, no doubt scared to lose him – and Phil just... does his best not to think on his way up to his quarters. 

He wants to take him to his rooms, but there’s hardly space to sit if they didn’t want to get cozy on the bed. Something about that feels normal, and puts a small spark of heat in Phil’s belly, but he determinedly pushes it away. Now isn’t the time, or maybe it is, or... 

No. 

He takes him to his office instead, but instead of sitting down behind his desk he settles into the corner of the small couch tucked against the wall, and when Clint sits down on the other side he’s struck with a sudden understanding of why he’d insisted on the sofa in the first place. 

Clint’s gaze is roaming hungrily over his face, his body, and the heat in his stomach builds, tingles beneath his skin. He feels himself blush, forces himself to lift his chin and speak clearly. 

“I don’t remember us,” he says, because it hurts to do it and it’s for the best that it does, like ripping off a band-aid. 

Doesn’t make it any easier to handle the way Clint flinches. 

“Not at all?” he asks, and his voice is small and young and wounded, and makes Phil want to wrap him up and pet his hair. 

“I remember you as my asset,” he says. “You and Natasha. I remember you as my friends. My... my favorites.” 

Clint lifts his head, looks a bit more hopeful, a little less scared. 

“We’re your favorites?” 

Phil offers him a wry smirk, feels a little less horrible, a little lighter. 

“I feel like you know that.” 

“Yeah,” Clint grins, still a little wobbly, “But it’s... good to hear boss.” 

Phil stares at him, for a long, quiet moment, and Clint bites his lip. 

“What happened?” 

“A lot,” Phil huffs, leaning back heavily against the cushions, suddenly exhausted. “When I died... Fury brought me back. Project TAHITI, which I had told him to shut down, because it’s dangerous and because it’s... _torturous...”_

_“Phil,”_ Clint whispers, choked, and Phil shakes his head. 

“It’s over,” he says, stopping himself from... taking Clint’s hand. 

Maybe it’s stupid but he’s not... sure about that, so he waits. 

“There were... side effects,” he continues, forcing himself to keep his eyes open, fixed on the wall behind the desk. “A lot of them, and none of them good. They stole memories out of my head, put different ones back, and I... I thought I had figured it all out, thought I’d... sorted it.” 

Swallowing hard, he shrugs, can’t look at the man beside him. 

“I guess I didn’t.” 

For a long time, neither of them speak. Clint doesn’t seem to know what to say, fidgeting uncomfortably in a way that’s incongruent with what he knows of the sniper, but it’s certainly an unusual set of circumstances, so he can hardly blame him. 

It’s... it’s a lot. 

“So...” he says slowly, licking his lips. “We were married?” 

“Yeah. Still, uh... still are, I guess,” Clint says, just as careful. “We had an op in Vegas, just you, me, and Nat. We’d only been dating for a couple months.” 

“You didn’t drag me to an Elvis impersonator, did you?” he asks, mostly because he hopes it will make Clint smile, but he just looks at him with an expression of love so deep it makes Phil squirm. 

“It was your idea,” he says softly, and _oh,_ that... “You already had a ring.” 

Phil breathes carefully, his eyes suddenly stinging, and he strains to hear Clint over the sound of his pounding heartbeat, listens to him talk about how Phil had dragged him out of the Bellagio fountain, suit soaked and torn, and pulled a pair of rings from his pocket. 

“It’s not right,” he interrupts, throat so tight he can barely choke out the words. “It... I wouldn’t have done that, I wouldn’t have done that if I wasn’t _sure.”_

Turning on the couch, he reaches out and fists his hand in the material of Clint’s shirt, unintentionally (or maybe not) pulling him closer. 

“I wouldn’t have done that,” he says again, insistent as he stares at Clint’s chest, unable to look him in the face. “I wouldn’t have proposed, I wouldn’t have keyed you to Lola, I wouldn’t have _married you_ if I wasn’t head-over-heels-hopeless in love with you. I _know that._ But I... I can’t remember any of it.” 

Clint leans forward, practically collapses as he drops his forehead against Phil’s, his eyes squeezed tightly shut like he’s afraid of what he’ll see as a tear runs slowly down his cheek. 

“It’s ok,” he shushes, and just from the sound of his voice Phil knows that no, it is absolutely _not_ ok. “It’s... we’ll be ok. Phil? Do you... do you _want_ to remember?” 

_“Yes,”_ he stresses, and he knows he should tread carefully, but it feels like the most honest thing he’s ever said. 

It’s just, he hasn’t fully contemplated what all this means yet. 

He hasn’t thought it through, hasn’t gone over every angle. 

He only knows that he’s committing to something huge, to something that could destroy the man in front of him if he’s not careful, if it goes wrong. 

But he _wants_ that. 

“Then we’ll be ok,” Clint murmurs, opening his eyes again as a wobbly smile trembles across his face. “Lola remembers me...” 

“And I always said she was a good judge of character,” Phil huffs, more than a little shaky himself. 

"I... this is probably weird,” Clint says suddenly, reaching out to take Phil’s hand, except wait, no, he’s not. 

He’s taking back the rings, the rings that Phil has been clutching in his hand this whole time without realizing it, winding the chain around and around his fingers. He’s incredibly reluctant to let them go, and feels an innate sense of loss when Clint slips that delicate chain over his head and tucks the rings away beneath the collar of his shirt. 

He’s chewing at his lower lip, and Phil’s swamped with the strange yet familiar urge to kiss him, but his hand has already come up instinctively to cup his cheek, thumbing it from between his teeth in a move that feels like he’s done it a hundred times. 

Clint meets his gaze and they both blush, and he drops his hand. 

“This is probably weird,” Clint says again, slightly more confident as he squares his shoulders and lifts his chin, “But um... do you maybe wanna have dinner with me? Like, dinner-dinner?” 

“Like a date?” Phil asks, a grin touching the corners of his mouth because it feels right and it feels funny and it’s kind of unbelievably sweet and considerate of Clint who must... god, who must be hurting and wanting and scare ten times worse than he is, even as prickles of static run across his brain where the most important memories of his life are missing. 

“Um, yeah, like a... like a date,” he confirms, and Phil finds himself nodding eagerly, apparently too shy for words all of a sudden. 

“I’d like that,” he manages, licking his lips, and Clint’s hand finally, _finally_ covers his on the couch cushions between them. 

“Great,” Clint huffs, a huge, heaving sigh like he’d been terrified Phil would say no, but how could he say no, even with circumstances being what they were? 

How could he not, when Clint is being so careful with him, so respectful, asking permission and avoiding blame, accepting all of it even... even after learning that his husband, whom he’d lost, doesn’t remember him at all? 

Phil can’t imagine what... 

But it’s ok. 

Clint is here, and Phil _knows_ now, and even though he doesn’t really _remember,_ he thinks he can still feel it. Something, deep down, pulls at him, like a string connecting him to the beautiful archer beside him, and he... he _believes him._

_Trusts him._

He had started Lola after all, hadn’t pushed him for anything, had held on when anyone else would have walked away, and now they have a second chance. 

They both stand, awkward on their feet as Phil offers Clint a bed on the plane for the remainder of the flight. They walk side by side down the hall toward the empty bunk, each of them flicking the other subtle glances and blushing and looking away like teenagers when they’re caught. It’s silly, and it’s soft, and it feels wonderfully, beautifully new and old at the same time. 

“So, um, I don’t know if Friday, or...” Clint stammers, and that quiet note of fear and caution is back in his voice. 

Phil smiles softly, touches his arm. 

“I’ll make it work,” he says, and he knows he will, no matter where he is or what he’s in the middle of. “We’ll take Lola, and you can drive.” 

A smile lights on Clint’s face, bright and happy and hopeful, and Phil thinks he could look at that face for the rest of his life and not get tired of it. 

“Cool,” Clint breathes, then he ducks his head, fidgets. “Could I um... could I give you a kiss.” 

Phil nods eagerly, immediately, and he doesn’t know what he’s expecting, but it’s not the soft, chaste, lingering kiss on the cheek that he receives. 

“I’ll see you later ba... um, boss,” Clint says, blushing as he stumbles over what Phil suspects is a pet name that would make him absolutely melt. “I uh, I’m gonna go call Nat, call her off.” 

“Tell her I’d like to see her, when she’s ready,” he says, and Clint nods. 

“No problem. Um... good night.” 

“Good night Clint,” he murmurs, and then he turns away, because if he doesn’t he’ll follow him into the bunk, climb into the bed beside him and hold him close. 

He’s done it before, he’s sure, and he’ll do it again someday. 

They have a ways to go yet. 

But there are rings and vows and a very real emotion between them, and suddenly he’s not afraid anymore. That nonsensical itch, that feeling of missing something is gone, and he goes to his own bed knowing that Clint, his husband, is only one, thin wall away.


	2. All Day and All of the Night

Phil Coulson isn’t often nervous. He’s the type of man who does enough research, enough prep work that he doesn’t often have cause to be. This has served him well over the years, in his professional life certainly, but in his personal life too. He remembers that much, or at least, he’d thought he’d remembered, and really that’s the problem right there isn’t it? 

What he remembers isn’t exactly correct. 

No, ever since Clint Barton had shown up on his bus, Phil’s been walking around with a screaming headache and the even more painful knowledge that a huge part of who he was is missing. The man he’d thought was just an agent, just a good friend, had turned out to be his husband, a husband whose heart he’d accidentally broken not once but twice. Phil feels an inexplicable ache in his chest when he thinks about him, a pull that he can’t explain, but there are no real memories there at all and trying to find them, trying to dig deep makes him feel like someone’s splitting his skull with a hatchet. 

He’s tried, he really has. 

He’d tried to push through the pain, tried to sidestep around it, even thought about climbing back into the cradle in an attempt to... 

But Clint had stopped him. 

_‘No, no, baby, don’t...’_

He’d promised it didn’t matter. 

Phil understands what he’d meant – that he still loves him despite the post-mortem amnesia – but it _does_ matter, to him anyway. He wants those memories back, all the words and all the kisses and all the moments that had been stolen away, but he doesn’t want to hurt Clint again to achieve that. Not after he’d lived through Phil’s death, not after he’d lived through weeks, months believing that Phil had walked away from him after being brought back to life. 

He thinks that hurting himself, risking himself like that again might hurt Clint more than anything else. 

So he doesn’t. 

He walks around with a hole in his chest, all his instincts screaming at him that something’s missing, that something’s terribly wrong, and he prays to a god and a sense of justice that he doesn’t trust or believe in that this thing will all turn out ok. 

He misses Clint. 

That much is easy to admit to himself, to understand. 

The archer had left the morning after he’d arrived, had promised Phil he wasn’t running, just needed some distance, and slipped away from the airfield May had landed them on without a backward glance. Something about that felt familiar, felt incredibly safe, and Phil relaxes into that feeling even though he doesn’t have the knowledge to back it up. 

Every night since then he’s gone to sleep in his bunk instead of his office, let his mind float across all the memories that he _does_ still have of Clint. Most of them are work related, very nearly all except for one or two, but even those have a rosy sort of tint to them, a softness around the edges that Phil hadn’t noticed before. He’s certain he doesn’t remember other agents that way, not Evans or Smith or Christiansen, and that’s... comforting. 

Because there’s a lot to navigate here, isn’t there? 

He doesn’t want to hurt Clint by turning him away, doesn’t want to do that to himself either, but he doesn’t want to promise something he can’t give. 

He examines each remembrance of the archer that he was as carefully as he can without giving himself an aneurism, and finds that even without the warm tug in his chest he likes the man he sees. He likes what he remembers of his wit, his work ethic, his bravery and his charisma. He likes the idea of himself and Clint and Agent Romanov being friends, enough that they gather together on weekends sometimes to do silly, civilian things like visit the zoo or watch a baseball game on tv. He likes... 

It’s hard. 

He knows he’s bisexual, has known for almost his whole life, and knows that he’s never had a problem dating before. There’s no problem with Clint being a man, or with the idea of the two of them together, and when he stops and thinks about it now, takes a fearlessly objective inventory of his current opinions, he knows there’s no issue with attraction. Clint is... quite handsome, and nicely shaped, and Phil can imagine himself easily engaging in certain... adult activities with gusto, but the rest... 

It’s just hard. 

He’d told the truth – he couldn’t believe that he would go so far as to marry someone, to key them to Lola’s biometrics if he weren’t completely and hopelessly in love, and despite the gaps in his memory, the foreign DNA swimming around in his system, he still knows himself. 

He wouldn’t have fallen that hard, that deep, that devoted, without knowing Clint inside and out as well, without knowing the two of them together sideways and upside down. 

That kind of a relationship, that kind of a bond, it takes so much to build, so many small moments, so many words and secrets and inside jokes, so many shared cups of coffee... 

How can he possibly hope to rebuild all of that? 

So. 

Nervous. 

Clint shows up on Friday at seven on the dot, even though Phil hadn’t told him they were back in New York. He suspects his team is looking out for him, as best they can at least, because Skye had washed and folded his favorite sweater, thin and grey and soft, and May is standing with Clint at the tail of the Bus when he comes down the stairs, apparently having given him their location and descended from her cockpit to let him in herself. 

It's nice, but it doesn’t help to calm his nerves. 

“Hi,” Clint says quietly as Phil steps up beside him and Melinda slips away. 

Phil can see the want in his face, the need to move closer, to touch, to freak out, but he reigns it in and holds it back, ever the sniper when he needs to be, quiet and still. He knows it’s not fair and he knows it must hurt, but he’s achingly grateful for that. 

“Hi,” he smiles back, trying to be... reassuring maybe. 

He thinks he probably fails. 

“Is this um... is this still good?” Clint asks, and oh god, he’s giving him an out, what did Phil ever do to deserve someone like this? 

“It’s still good,” he agrees, and then, because he’s feeling so grateful and so sickeningly relieved, he reaches out and takes Clint’s hand. 

The archer blinks, looks stunned, but then something in him seems to thaw a little and his shoulders relax. 

“Cool. We’re headed out of the city a little; you still good to drive Lola?” 

_“You_ are still good to drive Lola,” he says, chuckling a little as Clint’s eyes light up and he leans down to grab a hard-sided duffel from the floor at his feet. “I can’t actually drive her myself at the moment.” 

“Wait, you... Phil are you ok?” Clint asks, his footsteps stuttering as they walk across the bay to the shiny red Corvette. “I mean, crap, besides...” 

Phil opens his mouth, closes it again, suddenly realizing that no, he’s not the same husband Clint remembers any more. Not only has his mind been fractured but his body’s not exactly whole either, and he... 

It’s stupid. 

They’re SHIELD agents – scars and damage come par for the course. 

Lifting his hand, he grabs his forearm near the seam of his prosthetic and unclicks it, letting the electronic light shine through as he separates it about an inch from the cap. He thinks about waving it at his husband but he’s pretty sure the joke won’t land, so he just offers him a melancholy smile and clicks it back into place. 

“Some accessories sold separately,” he huffs, but it sounds lame even to his own ears. 

Skye would be ashamed. 

“Does it do anything cool?” 

Now it’s Phil’s turn to blink, to be surprised. 

Lifting his head, he finds Clint looking at him curiously, his head tilted, and is struck with a pang of nostalgia that doesn’t quite sit right in the back of his head, but is there all the same. 

“Like what?” he asks, flexing his fist to make the shield appear. “Manifest a shield that would make even Steve Rogers jealous?” 

“You dork,” Clint says fondly, shaking his head and turning away to slide the duffel bag into Lola’s miniscule back seat. “I was hoping maybe it vibrated or something, but...” 

He seems to realize what he’s said a second too late, his shoulders going high and tight again, but Phil finds himself barking a laugh that’s as big and honest as it is unexpected, bright and happy. 

“Get in the car Barton,” he teases, and it feels good, it feels really, really good just to relax for a second and be. 

Clint licks his lips, flicks him a glance from beneath his eyelashes, but does as he’s told when Phil climbs into the passenger seat. 

“So you can’t start her at all?” he asks as he fastens his seatbelt, adjusting the rearview mirror gently. 

Phil shakes his head, curses his analytical mind. 

“No. I got too deep into overthinking the security system – I never expected to lose an entire hand. There was no backup, no key to override it to scan in the new one.” 

“Couldn’t you just take your old scans and have them 3D printed onto the prosthetic?” Clint asks, and Phil hums. 

“Tried that,” Phil frowns, turning his hand, his fake hand back and forth. “It’s a sensitive keypad – it didn’t take.” 

Clint nods, his eyes on the prosthetic before he lifts his own hand, hesitating before he lays it on Lola’s steering wheel, starting her up with a low, seductive purr that has Phil struggling not to squirm in his seat. 

God he loves this car, but watching Clint start her, knowing that he loved Clint enough to _let him_ start her... 

“So where are we headed?” he asks as Clint backs carefully down the ramp and out of the Bus, turns Lola around and heads for the airstrip exit. 

“ ‘S a surprise,” he says, before his grin falters and he suddenly starts to backtrack. “I mean, unless you um... May knows, but if you...” 

“It’s fine Clint,” he says quietly, and this is what he was talking about, this painful uncertainty. “I trust you.” 

“It’s ok if you don’t,” Clint says, fast and sharp like he needs to get the words out before he thinks the better of it. “I mean, yeah, it would... but I’d understand Phil.” 

“And I appreciate that,” he says quietly, reaching over to touch the back of Clint’s hand where it rests oh-so-casually on the gearstick. 

He wants to say more. 

He wants to tell him that it’s ok, that he doesn’t need to be treated with kid gloves, but... 

But it’s hard, and it’s new, even though it’s not, and he doesn’t have the memories he needs to feel completely and one hundred percent at ease with the man beside him, even if he is Phil’s husband. 

Clint seems to get it though. 

He offers Phil a wry sort of half-smile and brushes his thumb over his knuckles before he takes his hand back, settles deeper into the creamy leather of Lola’s seats. He drives confidently, the way he pilots, and Phil is struck by... well, the _idea_ of Clint at the controls of a jet, the vague notion that there are memories associated with the concept. It’s nice weather, warm for early June even as the sun starts to set, and it’s easy to relax and enjoy the drive, the breeze that comes with having the top down. As they make it across the city and start to head out of town, Clint turns the radio on low and hums along to The Kinks, the corner of his mouth tucked in like he’s hiding a smile. 

_“I’m not content to be with you in the daytime,_

_Boy I want to be with you all of the time,_

_The only time I feel alright is by your side...”_

“My memory may be shot but I’m pretty sure those aren’t the words,” he says, because his jokes are lame and his heart feels heavy, and Clint sings the lyrics without even realizing he’s doing it. 

Clint just laughs. 

Once they’ve gone a few miles out into farm country he pulls off onto a small, dirt road and drives them toward a train crossing, pulling Lola carefully onto a grassy slope that leads down to a field of short, young soybeans. He puts her in park and kills the engine, offers Phil a smile with glinting, mischievous eyes before climbing out, and if he did want to test Phil’s trust this would be the way to do it. 

Seems like the start of a good horror film, but he’s not worried. 

Climbing out after him, he waits patiently while Clint pulls his duffel from the back. He's expecting a walk to their destination, wonders if there’s a farmer nearby who has a litter of puppies for the to play with - and where that thought came from he has no idea – but Clint just opens the bag and pulls out a picnic blanket, fluffing it out over the grass in front of Lola’s grill. He grins at Phil as he sits down and kicks off his shoes, makes himself comfortable, and after a moment of surprise Phil sits down beside him and does the same. 

“This is... not what I was expecting,” he says slowly as Clint starts to unpack a mountain of Tupperware containers from his bag. 

“What _were_ you expecting?” he asks, smile still poorly hidden at the corners of his mouth. 

“A fancy restaurant I guess,” Phil shrugs, “Something ritzy. That... doesn’t really make sense...” 

“I tried that the first time around,” Clint admits, passing him a paper plate and holding his gaze for a long, tender moment. “It took me so long to ask, and I was so surprised you said yes, I... I wanted to impress you.” 

He huffs a forlorn sort of laugh, soft and worn around the edges, and smiles to himself. 

“Didn’t work out.” 

“Tell me?” Phil asks, and he doesn’t realize how much he wants the answer until Clint looks up at him with surprise and no small amount of caution. 

“It’s ok?” he asks, “I mean it won’t... you said you were getting headaches...” 

“Won’t know unless we try.” 

Clint licks his lips, swallows hard, then nods once and starts dolling out triangles of peanut butter and jelly sandwich made on the fancy, nine-grain bread Phil loves. 

“I took you out to Carmichael’s - you know that place Natasha loves?” he says, opening up a container of fruit salad. “Wore a tie and everything. She told me I was trying too hard but I didn’t listen. I ended up being so tense the whole time it was pretty obvious neither of us were having fun. We couldn’t really get a conversation going and by the time it was all over I was about ready to cry it had gone so bad.” 

Phil breathes, listens quietly, tries not to focus too hard so that his mind can just... _hear_ these things, and maybe remember what it’s supposed to do, how it’s supposed to work. 

“You let me get you halfway back to your apartment before you took over,” Clint continues. “We went to central park and got ice cream from a food truck, and then we walked around the baseball fields... after that you were in charge of the dates. Always did do better when you planned the ops.” 

Phil smiles, and they’re quiet for a while, nibbling sandwiches and drinking milk from a thermos, and it all seems kind of childish and young in a soft, quiet, simple way that’s terribly, painfully wonderful. Clint asks him a little about his new team, what he’s been doing with the Bus and the mobile response unit he’d always wanted, and Phil answers him because he seems to need to talk about something else for a while. After that it’s his turn, and he asks questions about the Avengers and _their_ exploits because that seems the safest. The conversation isn’t easy, it’s too stilted and hesitant for that, but they have it and he thinks maybe that’s more important. 

The sun starts to sink below the skyline earlier than Phil would like, but Clint doesn’t move to pack them up. Instead he pulls another blanket out of his bag, gets them both settled back against Lola’s bumper and shakes it out over their legs. Once that’s done, he dips back in and comes out with a package of glowsticks, cracking a handful and bending them carefully into bracelets. Phil offers him his wrist without prompting and is gifted two blues and a green for his cooperation, while Clint wraps the pink one around his own wrist. There are two purple ones left, and Phil sneaks them out of Clint’s hand before he can protest, linking them together to form a larger circle that he perches on the archer’s head. 

They get caught there for a moment, Clint staring at him with the most heartsore expression on his face, and Phil isn’t sure whether his husband means to kiss him or not, whether he _wants_ to be kissed. 

The moment breaks though, and he can breathe again when Clint finally looks away, so he has to be thankful for it even though he doesn’t want to have to be. 

The Amazing Hawkeye turns his eyes skyward and Phil finally catches on that they’re here to stargaze, out here in this open field where the clean air isn’t tainted by the smog of the city. The sky goes dark like indigo velvet, tiny chips of diamond flung across, and he sighs softly as he leans back, takes a moment to appreciate the beauty of it all. 

“I used to do this with my mom,” he says quietly, and beside him Clint smiles. 

“I know,” he replies gently, and suddenly Phil’s so choked up he can’t stand it. 

Clint reaches out and touches his hand, his real hand, quick and light but _there,_ and Phil knows at the very core of himself that they’ve done this before, that Clint wants more than anything to be lying cuddled up together in each other’s arms. 

“It’s ok,” he murmurs, because of course he can read Phil’s thoughts on his face and in his body and through his eyes. “Phil. It’s ok.” 

“It’s not,” he manages to grind out, tight and breathless. “It’s not fair, this isn’t... this isn’t fair.” 

The sensation of being completely overwhelmed comes on fast, like a panic attack, but Clint just rolls onto his knees, wraps one hand around Phil’s neck and drags him forward, presses their foreheads together and squeezes his eyes shut. 

“It’s more than fair,” he chokes, and he sounds broken and hurt and miserable, everything Phil doesn’t want him to be. “It’s _more_ than fair Phil. You’re here, you’re alive, you... you’re _here_ Phil. I got you back.” 

He barely manages to whisper those last few words, and Phil can see the tears streaming down his cheeks. Reaching out blindly, he finds Clint’s free hand and laces their fingers together, hangs on tight. 

“I will take you _any_ way I can keep you,” Clint bites out, gritty and aching and as sharp as a knife. “I’m sorry baby, I’m so sorry, I know I shouldn’t... I know this has to be hard for you but I _can’t_ not be happy that...” 

“Hard for _me?”_ Phil moans, shaky and horrified. “Oh god, Clint, I don’t... I don’t even remember! _You..._ It's not fair to _you!”_

This time Clint’s laugh is small and cracked and wounded, and he slowly wraps his arms around Phil’s shoulders, pulling him onto his knees so that they’re both upright and pressed together in a hug. 

“Course you’re worried about _me,”_ he growls, half teasing half earnest. “Jesus Phil, I’m just happy you’re not... I thought you were mad at me. Or... escaping me or something, I don’t know. It was stupid and deep down I knew better but you’d been gone so long and I... I’m just glad I know.” 

Pulling back, Clint lets him go and sits down again, swipes roughly at his cheeks. 

“This, all this,” he says slowly, gesturing to the blanket and the empty field around them, face turned away so that Phil can only see the curve of his cheek, the edge of his jaw. “It’s whatever you want it to be Phil. I... I still love you, I can’t turn that off, and you’ll always be my husband, but if you don’t want...” 

Phil squeezes his eyes shut, because he can’t lie, and he doesn’t want to see the look on Clint’s face when he says what he has to say next. 

“I don’t remember loving you,” he says, and the words are like glass in his throat. “I don’t feel for you the way I know I must have before. But there’s enough there underneath that I know I _could_ if...” 

Phil sighs, opens his eyes and shakes his head, stares at the sky. 

“It’s not fair,” he repeats. “It’s not fair to ask you to be patient with me, to...” 

“Phil.” 

Clint finally turns back to him, looks positively distraught. 

“God, I’d wait for you forever,” he says suddenly, staring at Phil’s face like he... well, like he hasn’t seen it in years. “If I knew it’s what you wanted I’d spend the rest of my life courting you all over again, convincing you that I was...” 

Phil blinks, stunned, and is struck by just how much, just how deeply Clint loves him, even in the face of all this mess, how much they must have loved each other. 

“You’d be starting at square one,” he says miserably, and Clint shakes his head vehemently. 

“I don’t care,” he says, and god he just sounds so sure. “We never had time before, we... we spent so much of it avoiding each other, hiding from each other. By the time I’d fessed up and we actually got around to dating... it was only seven months later you pulled me into that chapel in Vegas.” 

“So what, this is a gift? A do-over?” Phil mumbles, more to himself than anything else because he’s feeling overwhelmed and lost. “We get to try again?” 

“Do you want to?” 

He looks up, finds Clint’s gaze directed at the blanket still tugged over their laps, the crests of his cheeks purple in the glow of his plastic halo. 

And well... 

The question had just been spoken so carefully, so hesitantly. 

So _hopefully._

“Yes. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.” 

Clint’s head snaps up so hard Phil nearly winces, but the look on his face, in his eyes is enough to calm the storm of his thoughts, the twisting emotions in the pit of his stomach. 

Reaching out, he takes his husband’s hand in his own, clasps it tight. 

Sitting back against Lola’s bumper, he wriggles a little bit closer, close enough that he’s pressed all down Clint’s side, leaning against his shoulder, and looks back to the sky. Clint is stiff and unsure beside him for all of a second, but then he breathes a shaky sigh and all that tension goes out of him. He slumps back, leans into Phil even harder, and it’s a moment of sheer, emotional exhaustion shared that passes between them in the next few breaths. 

But... 

Resolution too. 

Phil is still nervous. 

He still feels terribly for all the things Clint must be thinking, all the things he’s going through, and he still can’t make any promises, but... 

But he’s hopeful. 

They’ve _talked_ tonight, and something in him knows that that isn’t their typical MO. They’ve both confessed some fears, but more than that professed commitment, _willingness_ to try. 

Phil fell in love with the man beside him once. 

No reason to believe he can’t do the same thing again. 

“Tell me about them,” Clint murmurs, quiet and soft in the dark, his hands kept carefully in his lap. “I can find them, but I can never remember the stories.” 

“Not even Sagittarius?” Phil asks, teasing, even though his throat is tight, his voice strained. 

Next to him, Clint smiles softly, face turned up to the stars. 

“Him I remember,” he admits, scooching down in a way that almost suggests snuggling. “But I like it when you tell me.” 

So he does. 

Tells him all the stories about the constellations gleaming above them, even as a feeling of rightness sweeps over him, warm and calming. He lets the words fall out of his mouth, smooth and easy, even as his eyelids grow heavy and the tales come slower and slower. He falls asleep with his head on Clint’s shoulder, and just before the world drops away he thinks he hears Clint sing again, soft and aching. 

_“I believe that you and me last forever,_

_Oh yeah, all day and nighttime yours, leave me never,_

_The only time I feel alright is by your side._

_Boy I wanna be with you all of the time._

_All day and all of the night.”_


	3. Tired of Waiting for You

True to his word, Clint spends the next six months dedicating himself to treating Phil like a prince. Somehow (not with Skye and May’s sneaky help, surely...) he manages to find the Bus whenever it’s parked, showing up with coffee for long, quiet chats in Phil’s office, and those afternoons quickly come to mean more to him than all the dates Clint takes him on when evening falls. 

They don’t get that many, don’t get him wrong – they both still work ridiculous hours on missions that take them all over the globe. Clint though, with the help of his silent accomplices, does his best, which is a lot better than Phil was expecting to be perfectly honest. Once every two weeks at the very least he steps into his office to find the archer sprawled across his couch, tossing pens at the foamboard ceiling as a Tall Americano sits steaming on his desk, and he looks forward to those working breaks more and more as time goes on. 

They go to lunch at little outdoor cafes when Clint is accompanied by the scruffy, one-eyed mutt he rescued after Phil’s death. They take walks in parks all around the world, in the rain and the snow and the sun. They go to museums, exhibits that Phil loves and that Clint often ignores in favor of looking at him, and each time they end the night with Phil doing or saying something that feels like an apology and Clint kissing him sweetly on the cheek without ever asking for anything else. 

It’s hard. 

It’s not even always _fun,_ because when it’s over he’s left sitting alone on the Bus or lying alone in his bed, thinking about what he must have had before and how badly he wants it again. It fills his chest up with an ache so great that it takes him a long time to realize that he needs to stop dwelling on what was, on what he lost, and start focusing on what he _could have,_ start fighting to get it back. 

Because he _does_ like Clint. 

He likes his humor and his silliness, likes the way he can go sniper-still and serious at the drop of a hat. He likes the way he moves, likes his competency and his dedication, to his job and to the people he cares about. He likes watching him work with his bow, all coiled power and concentration, sheer passion and bridleless joy, and yes, he likes the way Clint looks. He’s strong and rugged and handsome, with colorful, laughing eyes that look at him so tenderly Phil can’t help but feel loved. 

And that’s the problem. 

Clint loves him, and deserves all that love right back. 

That’s what he wants, why he’s doing this, putting all his heart and soul into wooing Phil with the hopes of getting his husband back, and Phil just doesn’t know... 

Natasha leaves him a scrapbook full of pictures, ticket stubs, and trinkets, touchstones of memories he doesn’t have. It’s all him, and Clint, and her, the two of them and all three of them together, and it makes his head pound to page through it but he cherishes that book with everything he has. He can see how happy he is in those photos, can see how happy they all were when Clint and Phil were still _Clint &Phil,_ and it hurts but he... he _does_ want that. 

“I’m not the same man,” he says one night, his face pressed against Clint’s shoulder as they slow dance in an empty parking lot to the music being piped from an all-night Korean grocery store. “They’re never going to come back, and I’ll never be the husband you used to have...” 

“You haven’t changed Phil,” Clint replies, and everything about him is soft and calm and sweet, no tension in his body or in his voice. “You’re still everything I fell in love with all those years ago.” 

Phil doesn’t make a reply, just shifts closer to feel the heat coming off his husband’s chest. 

“If anything, technically I’m the one that’s different,” Clint continues, letting him snuggle up against his front. “Since I’m basically a new version of myself. For you anyway.” 

“Yes,” Phil murmurs, all the reassurance he can afford to give him. 

“I guess, as long as... I mean, if you _like_ this me...” 

“Yes.” 

They don’t talk anymore after that. 

Everything between them hurts, even the good bits. 

Phil slowly comes to understand that it’s not about bracing against the hurt, not the moment before the hit or the explosion when you have time to think about it, but rather the long, dull ache that comes after, like riding out a broken bone. 

The thing about broken bones is that eventually they heal. 

Maybe they’re not ever quite the same again, but with time and work and understanding, no small amount of tenderness, they heal. 

So he does the work. 

He bears the headaches that come from taking a long, thorough look at himself and what he feels, present emotions connected by long, tenuous threads to the things he must have felt before. He talks to Natasha, listens carefully to what she shares about who he’d been when he was _Phil Coulson-Barton_ instead of just _Phillip J. Coulson of SHIELD._ He learns about Clint, asks him questions he should already know the answers to and holds his hand whenever that melancholy look comes down over his face. Time goes by and he starts to _expect_ Clint at his side, to expect him in his office and in his text messages and in his life. It’s not the spark and crackling fire of new love or the consuming heat of lust, but a slow, creeping warmth that’s calm and steady and reassuring, and for the first time Phil stops and really considers what he believes love to be. 

“It’s because you’re already so god-damn-married,” Skye explains, with an inflection that tells him she’s referring to something more than just the fact that he and Clint still, presumably, have a signed marriage license sitting around somewhere that’s technically valid. “You _know_ each other AC. You’re like, soulmates.” 

Phil frowns and rolls his eyes, but later can’t stop thinking about the symbolism behind the words, the deeper meaning. 

Could that be it? 

Had he been waiting for a spark, a flash-fire of first, lusty love when all along, he’s already had something better? 

What _is_ love to him? What _does_ he want in a partner, in a marriage? 

Someone who understands the job, someone just as dedicated as he is, someone strong and passionate and just as proficient in their chosen specialty. 

Someone with a quick wit and great smile who loves him just as much as Phil loves them, who... 

_Oh._

“I _do_ love him,” he murmurs to himself in the dark, lying flat on his back in his bunk as the Bus hovers quietly over Antioch. “I’m in love with my husband.” 

It’s not a revelation. 

Not a great, watershed moment. 

It’s calm and slow and easy, and it’s better, better than Phil ever dreamed it could be. 

He doesn’t tell him right away. 

He should, he knows he should, but he has to be certain and he knows he couldn’t do that to Clint, couldn’t tell him and then be wrong, couldn’t tell him and then take it back. 

He starts planning a few dates, starts taking some initiative, which he should have done a long time ago, but seeing it all with new eyes, from this new, quietly wonderful perspective is like finding himself all over again, learning the two of them together for the first time. Clint delights in the change with poorly hidden relief, which just makes Phil work that much harder. 

_He_ reaches for Clint’s hand when they walk side-by-side. 

_He_ sends silly texts when they’re apart, just to find out what Clint’s up to. 

_He_ picks Clint up, his access to Lola newly minted courtesy of the archer who’d reset her security codes, and takes him to dinner, and to ball games, and to the new bakery up the street from Stark Tower that serves Avengers-themed doughnuts and coffee that could knock down the Hulk. 

_‘I love you,’_ he thinks as he initiates a kiss at the door, catching Clint by surprise by pressing their lips together long and sweet and lingering. _'I still love you.’_

Clint goes home that night with a light in his eyes and a dopey look of awe on his face, and suddenly Phil’s tired of waiting. 

He enlists Natasha’s involvement, who does him the courtesy of only asking once if he’s sure. With her help it's easy to set up a fake op in Vegas, though somewhat harder to get Clint’s ring back. He owes her cheesecake and real Russian vodka for that, because apparently his husband hardly ever takes them off. He doesn’t know how she manages to knock the Amazing Hawkeye into the Bellagio fountain, what with all his acrobatic training and penchant for high, precarious places, but she pulls it off, and in the end it doesn’t really matter, because Phil is right there to grasp his arm and haul him out again. 

Painful memories write themselves all over Clint’s face as he realizes who it is that’s pulling him from the water, where they are and what it had once meant. Phil regrets causing that hurt, but he’s down on one knee with Clint’s ring in his hand before the archer has time to tuck it away again, a dozen other emotions taking its place in rapid succession. 

“I still love you,” he hears himself say over the pounding of his heart. “Maybe not in exactly the same way, or for exactly the same reasons, but I do love you; _this me,_ right now. If that’s enough, if you can... if you can take me as I am without all the old memories, then Clint, I... I’d really like it if you would be my husband again. I miss you.” 

He does, he realizes. 

Maybe not the specific things, the day-to-day that had been snatched from him in exchange for his life, but the idea, the feeling, the overall _knowing_ who Clint was to him and what they were to each other. 

He wants that, doesn’t want it _back,_ just wants, new and hopeful and all over again. 

Clint stares at him with huge, wet eyes, all shivery fear and disbelief, and as he’s probably done a thousand times, Phil reaches out a hand to him, waits for him to take it. 

“This isn’t real,” he murmurs as he steps out of the puddle he’s standing in, presses himself so close that water immediately starts to soak through Phil’s suit. “You don’t...” 

“I do,” Phil insists, and the words aren’t lost on his husband who tries and fails to bite back a whimper. “So if you do too...” 

“Yeah,” Clint croaks, shaking his head sharply and cupping Phil’s face between his hands, pressing their foreheads together. “Yeah, I really, really do.” 

“Maybe leave out the _‘Till Death do us Part’_ bit this time,” Phil says, because he’s pretty sure there are tears rolling down Clint’s wet cheeks and it makes him laugh. 

“I’m with you on that babe,” he rasps, peppering Phil’s mouth with quick, short kisses, and oh, _that sounds familiar._ “I don’t...” 

“What?” Phil murmurs as Clint pulls away, bites his lip and trails off. 

“I don’t wanna wait,” he admits shamefacedly, rubbing his thumb over the ring that Phil still has gripped tight between his fingers. “Missed you too.” 

“I don’t want to wait either,” Phil promises, and Clint’s smile is the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen. 

It’s not the same as the last time, he thinks. 

Yes, he’d faked the op and recreated the dip in the fountain, but he’s taken other measures too. 

Their friends are there this time, the Avengers and all Phil’s ducklings. There’s no Elvis impersonator, but he’s found a Chaplin dressed as Captain America to officiate, because he’s a nerd and he knows by now how much it makes Clint laugh to see Steve blush. There’s a cake this time, and a sort-of-reception after, and Tony Stark doesn’t even have to pay for their night in the casino because it’s all been anonymously taken care of by someone using a credit card under the name of Marcus Johnson. 

He doesn’t need a sense of newness when he and Clint finally tumble into bed together at two in the morning wearing nothing but matching gold bands and sappy smiles. 

His chest is all full-up with a warm, familiar comfort that’s ten times better, and he’s got a whole lifetime with his husband to look forward to. 

He doesn’t have to wait anymore, hoping for the return of old memories. 

He has new ones to make, and he doesn’t have to do it alone.


End file.
